It had to happen eventually. There has been a school shooting right here in the Cincinnati area. All that afternoon I sat, staring at the television, surprised at myself for not feeling shocked, sad, scared, or worried. No, I was angry. I am angry-angry that this keeps happening, that no one seems to be able to do anything to stop it, that I feel helpless to do anything about it.
As a citizen, you can vote for those who represent your opinion on gun control, but what about us as mothers, as parents? What can we do in our homes and schools, at recess, around our dining room table, or at the park where the neighborhood kids gather? What can we do? Well, I don’t know about you, but here is where I will start:
1. I will teach my kids to be includers. We hear over and over that school shooters are loners. Some choose to isolate themselves; others are loners due to mental or emotional issues that those of us outside their family can do little about. That doesn’t mean I should do nothing. While I don’t force my kids to be friends with anyone, I do teach them to include others whenever there is an opportunity. I remind them that it is their responsibility to be observant. Is there someone standing to the side when you start a game, is the new kid in class looking unsure about where to sit at lunch, or is one person always left out when kids pair up? I set a clear expectation for my kid. I expect them to be the ones who speak up. “Hey! Come be on our team!” “Why don’t you sit here with us?” “You can be my partner.” They don’t have to be best friends to be kind. I will help them learn to be includers with practice, modeling, reminders, and prompting. If not you, my children, then who?
2. I will teach my kids how to deal with their emotions. Anger. Disappointment. Loneliness. Grief. Frustration. Embarrassment. It’s hard to deal with these feelings as an adult. How can I expect kids to do it without any instruction?
Step 1: Acknowledge their feelings. I cannot pretend that their emotions are less important, less difficult, less meaningful simply because they are children.
Step 2: Set standards for acceptable behavior. How can my children express their emotions in an acceptable way—hitting? Yelling? Crying? Writing? Running? Breaking things? Stomping out of the room? Taking a cold shower? Playing their music obnoxiously loud? Pent up emotions will always come out so if there are no acceptable options for how to behave, then their only option is to behave unacceptably. I will give them options for how to do it in an acceptable way.
Step 3: Help them problem solve. Even after letting off some steam, kids still have the problem that caused those feelings in the first place. I will help them problem solve how to do better on the next test, how to keep their sister from touching their stuff, or how to deal with that mean kid in their class.
I don’t want my kids to be any part of the circle where an angry, frustrated, lonely kid takes their feelings out on someone else who then gets angry, frustrated, and lonely, who then takes a gun to school to shoot the kid who made him angry, lonely, and frustrated. I will step in and teach them this skill now, before they are on either end of a gun.
3. I will call out the “mean girls” stereotype or the “boys will be boys” philosophy. Has my daughter ever been mean to another girl? You bet she has. Have my boys done some “boy stuff?” Of course they have. Just like everyone, my kids sometimes get caught up in what the crowd is doing or even make bad choices all on their own. Sometimes other parents say, “It’s ok, no big deal,” but it is not OK. Instead of shrugging and saying, “they all go through that mean girl stage,” or “boys will be boys,” I will act. I will step in and talk with them about why we don’t do that. We will brainstorm strategies for what to do instead.
4. I will model understanding and empathy. I will try to speak of others with curiosity and understanding, not anger and hate. As my kids are well aware from being in the car with me in traffic, I am not always good at this. Despite my words, not everyone who drives their car in a way I don’t appreciate is an idiot. Likewise, not everyone who thinks differently than I do is stupid. Not everyone that looks different than me is scary. All the people whose experiences I have never had, whose lifestyles I don’t understand, and whose behavior I can’t explain are not weird, dumb, lazy, immoral, or just plain bad. I will try harder to model for them that “different” is not the same as “bad.”
Kids soak up everything, including my attitude. If I look out into the world and see people I don’t like or trust, my kids will do the same. Instead, I can model a better way. Instead of cursing at that person who practically comes to a complete stop before making a right turn, I can say how scary it must be to be elderly, to have limited vision and slower reflexes, but still need to drive yourself places. Instead of rolling my eyes at the woman taking so long with her coupons or WIC in front of me in the grocery line, I can smile and say, “Hello. Take your time.” Instead of ranting about the people who support a candidate for president that I disagree with, I can think aloud about how different their life experience must be for them to see our world so differently. If I do better, my children will do better. Will fewer kids shoot people if they feel understood by others? I think so.
5. I will teach the difference between tattling and reporting and later, the difference between helping and snitching. I will always remember the day my youngest came home from school in tears. She was in the first grade and being bullied by another girl in her class. I didn’t know it, but this had been going on a while. On this day, one of her worksheets had been ripped up, she had been kicked in the head, and the bully was conspiring to keep her friends from playing with her at recess. Until that point, I had no idea, and neither did the teacher. The teacher’s policy was no tattling; tattle on a classmate, and you get the same punishment as the offender. Don’t take this as a criticism of the teacher. She is excellent, and truly, first grade teachers need a strategy to keep their classroom functioning. The problem was neither the teacher nor I had done a good job teaching my daughter the difference between tattling and reporting.
For kids, tattling is getting someone in trouble, it’s asking for an adult’s help when they could deal with the problem themselves, when whatever happened is really no big deal. Reporting is keeping someone from getting hurt, when the kid can’t solve the problem for themselves and needs help, when someone is doing something harmful, dangerous, or threatening. It works the same for big kids, but they need it spelled out for them too. Yes, friends keep secrets for each other, but true friends tell and adult and ask for help when someone is in danger, in over their head, or can’t deal with the situation on their own. I will make myself available to be the adult who hears these things by being present and paying attention at those times when children and teens are most likely to open up—those few minutes after they walk in the door after school or an activity, in the car, right before they go to sleep.
So now, it’s your turn. What will you do?
“If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.” -Napoleon Hill
